Comedy

• Doctor Dolittle | DVD | (02/07/2001) from £5.65   |  Saving you £7.34 (129.91%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Betty Thomas directs and Eddie Murphy stars in Doctor Dolittle, the 1998 hit film which, while ostensibly aimed at children, has a high quotient of hip and even mildly gross humour. Murphy stars as John Dolittle, whom we see as a child talking to a neighbourhood dog who explains that the reason mutts sniff each others' butts is to assess their characters when first meeting them. Little John promptly tries this out on being introduced to his school principal. Warned off such social eccentricity, Dolittle stops talking to animals and as an adult becomes a respectable doctor running his own medical practice--until a bump on the head revives his capacity to understand animals, whereupon mayhem, mortification and a menagerie of needy and freeloading creatures are heaped upon his ordered existence. Murphy plays it relatively straight. It's the animals, some of them vividly enhanced by Jim Henson's animating team, who provide the real laughs here, and a thoroughly worldly, wisecracking bunch of characters they prove to be. There's a couple of hard-boiled, squabbling rats, a pigeon who complains of impotence, Rocky the guinea pig (voiced by Chris Rock) with a neat line in hip backchat, while Albert Brooks voices the gruff, melancholy tiger whose life Dolittle must try to save. A sweet but by no means saccharine comedy. On the DVD: The DVD edition features scene selection and a trailer. --David Stubbs

• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut | DVD | (27/03/2000) from £6.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (100.14%)   |  RRP £13.99

  OK, let's get all the disclaimers out of the way first. Despite its colourful (if crude) animation, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is in no way meant for kids. It is chock full of profanity that might even make Quentin Tarantino blanch and has blasphemous references to God, Satan, Saddam Hussein (who's sleeping with Satan, literally) and Canada. It's rife with scatological humour, suggestive sexual situations, political incorrectness and gleeful, rampant vulgarity. And it's probably one of the most brilliant satires ever made. The plot: flatulent Canadian gross meisters Terrance and Philip hit the big screen and the South Park quartet of third graders--Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman--begin repeating their profane one-liners ad infinitum. The parents of South Park, led by Kyle's overbearing mom, form "Mothers Against Canada", blaming their neighbours to the north for their children's corruption and taking Terrance and Philip as war prisoners. It's up to the kids then to rescue their heroes from execution, not mention a brooding Satan, who's planning to take over the world. To give away any more of the plot would destroy the fun but this feature-length version of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Comedy Central hit is a dead-on and hilarious send-up of pop culture. And did we mention it's a musical? From the opening production number "Mountain Town" to the cheerful anti-profanity sing-along "It's Easy, MMM Kay" to Satan's faux-Disney ballad "Up There", Parker (who wrote or cowrote all the songs) brilliantly shoots down every earnest musical from Beauty and the Beast to Les Misérables. And in advocating free speech and satirising well-meaning but misguided parental censorship groups (with a special nod to the MPAA), Bigger, Longer & Uncut hits home against adult paranoia and hypocrisy with a vengeance. And the jokes, while indeed vulgar and gross, are hysterical; we can't repeat them here, especially the lyrics to Terrance and Philip's hit song, but you'll be rolling on the floor. Don't worry, though--to paraphrase Cartman, this movie won't warp your fragile little mind unless you have something against the First Amendment. --Mark Englehart

• The Good Life - Complete Series 1 | DVD | (29/03/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Good Life: Complete Season 1 (2 Discs)

• Never Been Kissed | Blu Ray | (03/02/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Let's get this straight: Drew Barrymore started a production company to develop original scripts outside of Hollywood and the first project she chose to produce was this, a romantic comedy written by USC grads Abby Kohn and Mark Silverstein about a nerdy, virginal woman who returns to high school as an undercover reporter, finally gets to be popular, and falls in love. And Barrymore decided, as producer, that the perfect actress to play this virtuous, clean-cut, and downright annoying geek would be... Drew Barrymore? It's hard to believe that after The Wedding Singer Barrymore's not getting enough dopey, formulaic, predictable romantic comedies coming across her desk. The complete inability to buy Barrymore as unattractive, awkward, and unpopular ruins Never Been Kissed from the start, but it's doubtful a better actress could have saved it. The jokes fall flat, the romance between Barrymore and her English teacher (played by Michael Vartan) lacks chemistry, and the portrayals of high school and the newspaper newsroom is clichéd and uninspired (big surprise here: the director, Raja Gosnell, previously made Home Alone 3). Gosnell can't even give the gifted character actor, John C. Reilly, anything to do. Only David Arquette, who plays Barrymore's out-of-control brother, brings any energy to the film. -- Dave McCoy, Amazon.com --This text refers to the VHS edition of this video

• Irish Showband Legends | DVD | (28/03/2005) from £7.45   |  Saving you £-1.46 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Various Artists - Ireland's Showband Legends

• Hot Fuzz | DVD | (17/12/2007) from £6.59   |  Saving you £5.40 (81.94%)   |  RRP £11.99

  A top London cop must contend with life in a sleepy West Country village in this new comedy from the 'Shaun Of The Dead' team.

• Lee Evans - Live In Scotland | DVD | (06/12/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This is the side-splitting grand finale at the Edinburgh Playhouse of Lee Evans' 100 date sell-out UK tour. Lee performed to over 150 000 people and shows us why he is described by the critics as ""one of our finest living comedians"". Against the backdrop of a giant kilt and sporran Lee invites you to watch the ""Lee Evans Trio"" where he attempts to play all the instruments at the same time. He then takes you on a hilarious journey from evolution running in flip-flops shopping th

• This Year's Love | DVD | (28/02/2000) from £7.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (150.19%)   |  RRP £19.99

  An unpretentious Brit-flick distinguished by a great cast, This Year's Love is writer-director David Kane's wry, funny study of six singletons in search of something--possibly love, possibly just sex--that will help them make sense of an untidy world. Aside from the acting, the film's strongest feature is its unflinching realism. The setting is North London's Camden Lock, an area that is in equal parts ultra-trendy and horrendously squalid. The characters reflect the locale: a circle of youthful drop-outs, wannabes and never-have-beens united in their common desire to surmount loneliness and find that elusive "perfect match". The central figures are newlyweds Danny and Hannah (the wonderful Douglas Henshall and Catherine McCormack) and the film in essence concerns itself with the fallout from the spectacular and rapid disintegration of their marriage. Danny first hooks up with cleaner-cum-nightclub singer Mary (a marvellously self-deprecating Kathy Burke), while Hannah finds lecherous womaniser Cameron (an unwashed Dougray Scott). Cameron's flatmate Liam (Ian Hart) fails to impress posh single mum Sophie (Jennifer Ehle in dreadlocks), who goes on to reject Danny and Cameron in turn, while Liam becomes dangerously obsessed by Hannah then Mary. So the merry-go-round of relationship swapping, unlikely coincidences and bittersweet life-lessons turns full circle. David Kane's comic dialogue is witheringly sharp, the situations (aside from all the coincidental meetings) are well-observed and the characters sympathetically three-dimensional (helped in no small part by the quality of the ensemble cast). The frequently hilarious comedy is tempered by an underlying despair: if it's not exactly Brassed Off or The Full Monty for neurotic, self-obsessed metropolitans, it's a film that's at least happy to exist in the same genre and achieves the same poignant empathy with its characters. The soundtrack is great, too. Imagine that the cast of Trainspotting gate-crashed Four Weddings and a Funeral and the result would be This Year's Love. On the DVD: Short on-set interviews with the principals and a promotional featurette are supplemented by a sequence of unedited behind-the-scenes footage. The film itself is presented in a good-looking anamorphic (16:9) print. --Mark Walker

• The Boat That Rocked | Blu Ray | (07/09/2009) from £9.87   |  Saving you £15.12 (153.19%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Richard Curtis ("Love Actually", "Four Weddings and a Funeral") delivers a feel-good hit in the making with this look at Britain's most infamous Rock'n'Roll, anti-establishment, high-sailing DJs!

• Zombieland | Blu Ray | (15/03/2010) from £7.73   |  Saving you £17.26 (223.29%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Zombieland focuses on two men who have found a way to survive a world overrun by zombies. Columbus is a big wuss. Tallahassee is a zombie-slayin' badass. But the pair has to decide which is worse: relying on each other or succumbing to the zombies.

• Being There | DVD | (10/02/2003) from £16.98   |  Saving you £-2.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Hal Ashby's much-praised Being There stars Peter Sellers in what was perhaps his finest comic performance. Chance the gardener has spent his entire life in an old man's house and has no idea of the world outside except for what television has given him. Sellers manages to make his innocence touching and oddly impressive rather than an offensive exploitation of disability. Jerzy Kozinski's screenplay neither entirely endorses nor discounts the twin possibilities that Chance's simplicity and closeness to the natural world give him access to real wisdom, or that he is simply a blank on whom people project what they want to see and hear. What is clear is that he gives his dying friend Ben (Jack Warden) peace of mind and consoles Ben's wife (Shirley Maclaine). Whether he's being groomed for the Presidency or appearing to walk on water, he always does something right, and the same is true for Sellers' minimalist performance. On the DVD: Being There is presented in a widescreen visual aspect of 1.85:1 and has 1.0 Dolby Digital mono sound; it comes with the original theatrical trailer, information about the stars and director and a list of the film's awards. --Roz Kaveny

• The Divorce Of Lady X | DVD | (05/04/2010) from £8.98   |  Saving you £6.00 (85.84%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This light-hearted society comedy from the Alexander Korda Library features three great actors early in their careers: Korda's wife-to-be Merle Oberon Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson. Adapted by Lajos Bir'' from the 1933 stage play Counsel's Opinion The Divorce of Lady X is a solidly produced 'screwball whimsy' in which Korda used an early threestrip Technicolor technique masterfully to give the film its particular lustre. The beautiful Leslie (Merle Oberon) a costume party guest and handsome divorce lawyer Everard Logan (Laurence Olivier) find themselves stranded by fog in an already overcrowded hotel. Leslie's solution is to commandeer Logan's bedroom relegating him to the sofa eat his breakfast and sneak off leaving only a note: 'Goodbye Lady X'. The next day she overhears Logan making disparaging remarks about women in divorce cases and decides that with the aid of her friends Lord and Lady Mere (Ralph Richardson and Binnie Barnes) and an elaborate ruse she will teach the misogynist a lesson...

• No My Darling Daughter | DVD | (05/09/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Juliet Mills plays the vivacious daughter of a wealthy international industrialist who runs away with a playboy millionaire, but falls in love with the hard-working young man who has been sent to bring her back.

• The Infidel | DVD | (09/08/2010) from £4.79   |  Saving you £11.20 (233.82%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Mahmud Nasir is a successful business owner and salt of the earth East End Muslim who discovers that he's adopted... and Jewish.

• Pitch Perfect: 2-Movie Collection | DVD | (04/09/2017) from £3.86   |  Saving you £5.11 (196.54%)   |  RRP £7.71

  Double bill of musical teen comedies following the fortunes of an all-girl a cappella singing group. In 'Pitch Perfect: Sing-along' (2014), Anna Kendrick stars as Beca, a freshman who is persuaded to join The Bellas, her university's all-female singing group. Raising their energy and expanding their repertoire, The Bellas have soon taken their music to a whole new level, culminating in a sing-off against their male counterparts in a campus-wide competition. In 'Pitch Perfect 2' (2015) The Barden Bellas enter an international singing competition that a group from the US have yet to win. Can they impress the judges enough to beat their competitors? The cast also includes Elizabeth Banks, Hailee Steinfeld, Brittany Snow and Katey Sagal.

• Goodbye Charlie Bright | DVD | (18/07/2005) from £4.80   |  Saving you £5.19 (108.12%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A new comedy set in and around a London council estate, that sees how the lives of four teenage friends are changed forever during the course of one long hot summer.

• Chasing Amy | Blu Ray | (18/04/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  When successful comic book artist Holden meets Alyssa a fellow comic book artist he falls head over heels in love with her. Holden gets the shock of his life when he finds out she's not interested in him. She has her romantic sights set on another... woman! But she decides to be friends anyway. As Alyssa'a and Holden's friendship evolves so do their feelings. Through a maze of unexpectedly humorous twists Holden discovers that friendship and love have never been so complicated or so funny.

• Toast | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £24.16   |  Saving you £-8.17 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  No matter how bad things get it's impossible not to love someone who's made you toast. Once you've bitten through that crusty surface to the soft dough underneath and tasted the warm salty butter - you're lost forever. Based on the heart-wrenching bittersweet story of British cook and writer Nigel Slater's childhood adapted from his best selling memoir Toast is a delicious love letter to the tastes and smells that a young boy associates with his journey into adulthood. Starring Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech Sweeney Todd) alongside Ken Stott (Rebus Messiah) Victoria Hamilton (Pride and Prejudice) and Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Spiderwick Chronicles) Toast is the ultimate nostalgia trip through everything edible in 1960s Britain.

• Game Night | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.91   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Jason Bateman (the Horrible Bosses films, TV's Arrested Development, Ozark) and Oscar nominee Rachel McAdams (Spotlight, Dr. Strange) team up in New Line Cinema's action comedy Game Night. John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein are directing the film, marking their second film as co-directors, following Vacation. Joining Bateman and McAdams in the cast are Billy Magnussen (Bridge of Spies, TV's American Crime Story), Sharon Horgan (Amazon's Catastrophe), Lamorne Morris (TV's New Girl), Kylie Bunbury (TV's Pitch, Under the Dome), Jesse Plemons (Black Mass, TV's Fargo), Danny Huston (Wonder Woman, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Chelsea Peretti (TV's Brooklyn Nine-Nine), with Michael C. Hall (TV's Dexter and Six Feet Under) and Kyle Chandler (Manchester by the Sea, TV's Bloodline). Bateman and McAdams star as Max and Annie, whose weekly couples game night gets kicked up a notch when Max's charismatic brother, Brooks (Chandler), arranges a murder mystery party, complete with fake thugs and faux federal agents. So when Brooks gets kidnapped, it's all part of the game right? But as the six uber-competitive gamers set out to solve the case and win, they begin to discover that neither this gamenor Brooksare what they seem to be. Over the course of one chaotic night, the friends find themselves increasingly in over their heads as each twist leads to another unexpected turn. With no rules, no points, and no idea who all the players are, this could turn out to be the most fun they've ever had or game over.

• Roy Chubby Brown - Standing Room Only | DVD | (11/11/2002) from £6.35   |  Saving you £13.64 (214.80%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Prepare yourself for an hour of Britains' favourite fat er bloke as he entertains a riotous crowd live in Northampton. Filmed in April 2002 Chubby is more outrageous and filthy than before - even the Queen Mother can't escape the Chubby treatment! Enjoy Roy Chubby Brown at his rudest and crudest best and see why all his live shows really are Standing Room Only.